I'm often asked what the "secret" is in regards to exercising. And the simple answer is there is no real "secret" just like it's no secret that you must save money and invest it over time to become wealthy. We all intuitively know this. The trick is to put it into practice by saving time in your week and investing in yourself by exercising. If you can make it part of your weekly routine you'll be golden, we're behavioral creatures after all.
The best part is you don't have to invest crazy amounts of time (or money) to get to where you want to be. A couple 45 minute workouts per week is all it takes, even less and you'll still see significant changes over time!
$100 invested a month for 40 years (or only $48,000 in that time) will grow to just over $1,000,000 at an average 11.5% annual return (the S&P 500 has seen ~10-12% average annual returns over the past few decades).
The "secret" so to speak is consistency x time. A LITTLE goes a LONG way so they say...